Tough Politics Some people think bitter politics is something relatively new in this country, but it has been going on since the founding of the country. Politics is a funny thing. When someone gets a certain reputation for their politics it can change over time. Alexander Hamilton is a good example of this. During his time many felt he was an elitist and even a monarchist, which was a terrible thing in a country which had just broken off from England, a country ruled by a king. Over time Hamilton’s reputation began to change. It took a long time, but now he is a lot more respected. He was friends with James Madison who on the other hand had the reputation of a wise statesman. When Thomas Jefferson was elected president, Aaron Burr Jr. was his vice-president. He had served as an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He was also a lawyer. He went up the governmental chain being the Attorney General in New York State, then a U.S. senator from New York. He had become president of the senate and presided over an impeachment trial of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. He was not well liked by a lot of people. He killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel when he was the Vice President. Can you imagine something like that happening today? Even though the duel was illegal he was never tried, but the duel ended his political career. He was arrested for treason but was acquitted. After Burr was dropped from the Vice-Presidential ticket during the president’s second run, Burr ran for governor of New York and lost to an almost unknown candidate by the biggest margin in history. Probably the biggest difference in U.S. politics was when the South decided to secede from the Union and the president, Abraham Lincoln became the political enemy of the South. The South wanted Lincoln dead, and he was assassinated by a Southern sympathizer even though the war was over. Admittedly this was an extreme reaction to the politics of the time. Think about this however, there are movements even today which are trying to get some states to break away from the United States. In 1858 a fight broke out on the floor of the House of Representatives. First there were insults being hurled between a Pennsylvania Republican Galusha Grow and South Carolina Democrat Laurence Keitt. They were angry over the stance each was taking on the Kansas Territory’s Bill. The insults became blows. Over thirty members of the House took part in what looked like a bar brawl. Northern Republicans and Free Soilers joined against the Southern Democrats. The Speaker was James Orr and he banged his gavel angrily but to no avail. He was yelling for the Sergeant-at-Arms Adam J. Glossbrenner to arrest those members. Wisconsin Republicans named John “Bowie Knife” Potter and Cadwallader Washburn ripped the hairpiece off the head of a Mississippi Democrat named William Barksdale. This was the biggest melee ever to transpire in the House and eventually it ended in laughs and jeers, but the hate had been there and exploded. I guess the hair piece incident was so funny it ended everything. Two senators were about to vote on a bill. They were both outside the senate. The bill was the Civil Rights Act. One senator was Strom Thurmond who wanted to filibuster the bill, the other was Ralph Yarborough who was in favor of the bill. Thurmond told Yarborough if he kept him out of the senate then he couldn’t vote for the bill, but if you can drag me in, I will stay there. They were not young men, both were in their sixties. They started to push each other, but then things got more serious, they then took off their jackets and tried to wrestle each other and soon both were gasping for breath. Another senator seeing this told them to stop before they had a heart attack. They got themselves together and went in. In 2007 one senator went over to another and punched him in the head. A senator from Alabama named Charles Bishop punched the senator Lowell Barron. After punching him he said he was raised in the woods and people don’t say that about your mom. When we talk about disagreements, really bad ones between politicians, we have to refer back to 1856 for one of the worst. A senator named Charles Sumner was in the senate when a House member entered. He walked over to Sumner and beat him so bad there was blood all over the senate and Sumner was unconscious. What had gotten Preston Brooks of the House so angry? Sumner had called out Senator Stephen Douglas and others for wanting to make Kansas a slave state and Brooks said they were not in Washington D.C. so he had to protect their honor. Today there are a lot of excuses for votes which were needed to be counted arriving late, but the best excuse was one given in 1934 when the votes from Woodville, Maine arrived four days late. They were supposed to be taken to Bangor. The men delivering the votes said they had the votes in a wagon and the horse reared up, because the biggest bear they had ever seen was heading for them. They said the horse took off, but didn’t explain how it got out of the harness. Next, they said by the time they caught the horse it was too late to travel so they spent the night at a place. During the night they heard scratching at the door and it was the bear. After awhile they were able to shoot the bear, skin it and eat it. Previously they had also stopped for a snack and a smoke.
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